Sunday, February 19, 2012

“It is getting clearer and clearer by the day that the government’s
drive to impeach Corona is mainly about Hacienda Luisita…” – Kilusang
Mayo UnoBY RONALYN V. OLEABulatlat.com
MANILA — Hundreds of protesters trooped to the Veteran’s Memorial
Medical Center (VMCC) this morning to condemn the Aquino government’s
approval of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s continued hospital detention.

“Arroyo deserves to be detained in a jail facility, not a hospital.
We are angry that the Aquino government, for all its pretensions of
going after Arroyo, is giving her special treatment,” said Elmer “Bong”
Labog, KMU chairman, said.

Last week, a Pasay regional trial court judge has allowed the former
president’s stay at the VMMC for health reasons. Presidential
spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Malacañang respects the decision of the
court, “having relied on the medical opinion of her attending physician
and with due accord to her position as former president.”

Arroyo is detained for charges of electoral sabotage.

“How can the Aquino government move heaven and earth to impeach
Corona, Arroyo’s accomplice, and let Arroyo herself, the bigger
criminal, as well as Palparan, have a comfortable stay in a government
hospital? That is only possible if the Aquino government’s goal in
impeaching Corona is not to punish Arroyo and the likes of Palparan but
to advance other interests,” Labog said.

It is publicly known that Malacañang had a hand in the impeachment of
Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona by the House of
Representatives in December.

Retired Maj. General Jovito Palparan Jr., meanwhile, is Arroyo’s
favorite general who is still at large despite a pending warrant of
arrest for charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention. Palparan
is implicated in the disappearance of University of the Philippines
(UP) students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan..... MORE

Europe seeks to bring relief to the Syrian people by creating
humanitarian corridors, a seemingly noble idea aimed at winning Russian
and Chinese support in the UN Security Council. But some are calling the
plan a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

­The call for supply routes bringing humanitarian aid to Syrian
cities first surfaced last November, and is back on the table as of this
week.

“The idea of humanitarian corridors that I previously
proposed, which would allow NGOs to reach the zones where scandalous
massacres are taking place, should be discussed at the Security
Council,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Wednesday..... MORE

02/19/2012
It seems these three characters were trying to pull a fast one on the Senate impeachment court.
It
was pretty obvious that Ms. Annabelle Tiongson was lying when she said
no when Sen. Jinggoy Estrada asked her if she knew Niel Tupas as well as
his brother, Raul Buboy Tupas.

Jinggoy Estrada said it would be absurd
that Tiongson could have not met either Niel or Raul, as her first
cousin, Roberto Buenaflor Armada was the running mate of Raul Buboy
Tupas and she even contributed to the camapign of his cousin as
candidate for vice-governor. Iloilo City is just a small place and it is
just unbelievable that one way or the other, members of prominent
family such as the Tupases and the Buenaflors would not bump into each
other in church, wedding celebration of relatives, social activities
such as birthday events and other similar activities. Certainly,
Tiongson was not truthful..... MORE

02/19/2012
From humble beginnings in the post World
War II years, sales of these two-wheeled creatures called motorcycles
(or motorbikes) from Japan have ballooned far, far beyond the
expectations of the astute businessmen who had foreseen a demand among
Filipinos and invested heavily to bring them to the country.

The
influx of Japanese motorcycles began in earnest in 1959 when Rufino
Antonio (a former congressman representing the province of Rizal)
entered into partnership with Suzuki Motor Corp. for the nationwide
distribution and sales of Suzuki-brand bikes. Three years later, in
1962, the Quisumbing family of Cebu signed a similar distributorship
tie-up with the Yamaha Corp. of Japan, but went one step further when
they agreed to become its sole assembler in the Philippines, whereupon
they built a sprawling factory in Mandaue City. In 1973, Honda Motor Co.
of Japan, the world’s biggest motorcycle maker, started production in
the Philippines with Mariwasa Honda Philippines. Inc..... MORE

02/19/2012
What is abortion? In its direct and
plain understanding, abortion is the killing of a yet unborn human being
in the womb of the mother. The intentional or deliberate murder,
slaughter or extermination of a yet unborn human person — this is
abortion in simple words. There is someone yet unborn, the latter is
still in the womb of his/her mother, yet he or she is purposely killed
for one reason or another, for whatever purpose or intent — these are
the basic elements of abortion, none of which is right or just.

Again,
while yet unborn and thereby helplessly though comfortably confined in
the womb of the mother, his or her human life is knowingly exterminated —
again, these are the core features of abortion.

It is a heinous
crime. It is a gross villainy. It is a hideous iniquity. All these say
one and the same thing, viz., abortion is not only unethical but also
immoral. Between the virtuous and vicious, the praiseworthy and the
condemnable, the glorious and atrocious — abortion is all the latter. To
claim that abortion is all the former constitutes the height of
irrationality and hypocrisy..... MORE

02/19/2012
The impeachment court, despite its being
a sui generis or a court of its kind is still a court by which the
senator-judges, the prosecution and the defense have adopted for its
procedural modality, the Rules of Evidence. And therefore semblances of
“contempt” against the impeachment court’s proceedings may not stand on
strictly legal grounds but definitely would on moral ground. A layman’s
definition of “contempt of court” is any behavior that opposes or defies
the authority, justice and dignity of the court. Obviously, contempt of
court metes out legal and moral punishment to the offending party.

But
what about when it is the President of the Republic of the Philippines
who holds the impeachment court in contempt with his jagged
pronouncements, not only in passing or “BTW,” but even to the extent of
leafing through the particular pieces of evidence for instance, the bank
accounts already being offered as evidence, debated, interpolated in
court.

Impeachment is a political process indeed and politicking
by the President himself, including a public lambast or black propaganda
may not strictly be an impropriety..... MORESource: The Daily Tribune

An official of
the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines is asking what is
keeping the Aquino administration from implementing a Supreme Court
order upholding land distribution at the vast Hacienda Luisita estate of
the Cojuangco-Aquino clan of President Aquino.

CBCP-National
Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace (CBCP-NASSA) chairman
and Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo also expressed his
disappointment over President Aquino’s silence on the land reform issue.

Citing
the Scriptures, Pabillo said “land hoarders should be afraid of their
fate when they leave this world as they continue to deny justice to the
farmers and farmworkers of Hacienda Luisita.”.... MORE

02/19/2012
Advocates of the Freedom of Information
(FoI) bill had placed squarely on Congress the responsibility for the
passage of the law during the current administration after the Palace
submitted its version of the bill that will be reconciled with that
pending in the legislature.

The proposed measure has been languishing in the archives of Congress for the past 25 years

Proponents of the bill are led by the Right to Know, Right Now Coalition, a network of 150 civil society and media groups..... MORE

One by one
the members of the House prosecution team realizing the ordeal that they
have to go through to defend all the eight articles of impeachment
against Chief Justice Renato Corona are owing up to the defects in the
complaint document used to rush the impeachment of the Supreme Court
(SC) head.

No less than Deputy Speaker, Ilocos Rep. Rudy Fariñas, a
member of the House prosecution team admitted, had earlier the
complaint was badly written and yesterday it was the turn of House
prosecutor Oriental Mindoro Rep. Rey Umali to admit that the articles of
impeachment were defective.

At the weekly news forum at Annabel’s
in Quezon City, Umali, the man behind the small lady tale, in a slip of
tongue, admitted the complaint was defective and that it won’t stand a
chance of being approved by the House had it undergone the normal
process of being heard before the Committee on Justice..... MORE

02/19/2012
Thousands of families displaced by
tropical storm “Sendong” are dismayed that the government still has no
clear relocation plans two months after the disaster struck.

As of
Feb. 1, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)
estimated that the total number of affected persons from Sendong in
Region X is 384,431 or 69,666 households in the provinces of Lanao del
Norte, Misamis Oriental, and Bukidnon.

Sendong, which hit the
region on Dec. 16, 2011, was considered one of the deadliest disasters
in the country’s history, with a death toll of more than 1,200,
according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council
(NDRRMC)..... MORE

02/19/2012
Top Malabon officials have toured around
the city in a determined bid to get the support of the residents as
part of their renewed and intensified anti-littering campaign in
compliance with an ordinance recently passed by the Sangguniang
Panlunsod for the purpose.

Through a caravan, local officials led
by Vice Mayor LenLen Oreta, the council’s presiding officer, went around
the city’s 21 barangays where they drew the help of local leaders and
their immediate constituents for the program.

“We have decided to
do it this way so that we can quickly convince the residents on the need
to really do their share by not wantonly dumping their garbage so as
not to contribute to the already worsening problem in the city,” Oreta
said..... MORE

02/19/2012
Participants in the recently concluded
water and wastewater symposium in Taguig City joined speaker Dr. Elisea
“Bebet” Gozun (middle) as they expressed their commitment to join the
city in its call to save the dying rivers in the metropolis and create
an environment-friendly “Luntiang Taguig.”

Rapidly-growing
Taguig City led local governments in hosting a city-wide water and
sanitation summit participated in by over 400 representatives from the
academe, private sector, barangays and civil society groups aimed at
engaging the city’s commitment to help save our dying environment. Aptly
themed “Isang Luntiang Taguig: Tubig at Kalikasan, Aking
Pangangalagaan,” the event tackled urgent topics on environmental
degradation and the source of pollution. The initiative to conduct a
symposium was a partnership between the local government of Taguig and
its barangays, the Manila Bay Commission, Laguna Lake Development
Authority (LLDA), World Bank, MWSS and East Zone concessionaire Manila
Water Company Inc..... MORESource: The Daily Tribune